ecoyear

Ongoing delicious selections include lots of carrots, crunchy sugar snap peas, garlic scapes, lots of onion, lettuce and more braising greens. I chickened out and traded them in again (for onions...). There were few eggs this week, so I got mine, and some kale, from Jay Hill Farm, and raided the farmer's market for anything I could turn into a meal, that I didn't already have. I came up with some parsley and green garlic. I also got some broccoli from Cure farm stand (they had greens, beets and nettles as well). I felt like I was foraging for a couple of hours there, trying to figure out places to get everything local for the week.

We made parsley and garlic scape pesto last night, with store-bought pasta because I had run out of eggs, and strawberries from the fruit share.

Other meals for the week will include:
- onion tart and salad
- carrot soup and salad
- duck with broccoli (Eastern Plains Food Co-op delivery this week)
- turkey burgers with chard (the turkey is from wherever - an experiment to see how we will live without ruminant animal meat)
- a stir-fry involving snap peas

I ran into a mom from my kids' school who was at the market picking up her CSA share. She was saying two things that struck me:
1. Her farm announced earlier in the year that high fuel prices would cause them to provide less produce than usual (they apparently gave folks a chance to get their money back...)
2. My friend had been told by someone else that the CSA is not really a way to get a major part of your produce, but that we should think of it more as a gesture we make that supports our local farms.

I had several thoughts in response to this:
- In a lean year, such as this is, if only for the cost of fuel, the point of the CSA is to share in the farmer's problems. So maybe we'll have a bumper crop and get our "money's worth", but it is quite correct that we otherwise get less produce for the same money.
- I disagree that CSA is mainly a way to support the farm. I think CSA farmers put a lot of thought, planning and work providing a variety of produce and trying to actually feed us. The "large" share, which is supposed to keep two vegetarians satisfied, costs only $30/week, and predictably, only begins to provide food for two adults who cook every day. I understand that these numbers may be in response to what the average Boulderite will commit to, especially as most of us have a conniption at the thought of needing to cook every single day to keep up with a box of produce.

However $30/week of food does not go far, on the farm or at the grocery store. I may be changing my tune in the summer and fall, but for now, I supplement with other local food sources. Coastalfields, interestingly, has tried to factor in what a person would truly eat, includes eggs and maybe grains in their boxes, goes year round, and otherwise goes out on a limb to actually support life as an example for a re-localized food supply. Their estimate is that two adults who cook all their meals would spend $2915 per year, or $56 per week, or they offer a $75 box pre-planned to feed two for a week, complete with recipes. They also are devoted to environmental consciousness, and won't grow strawberries because they use too much water. Enter chokecherries and prickly pear. That sort of effort will be crucial if/when oil really fails and the food supply re-localizes in earnest.